Saturday, February 5, 2011

The Roommate: I JUST WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND.

It finally arrived!! Move-in day for The Roommate! And while it was a fun experience that we loved, we're not sure we would call it a "good" one. Rotten Tomatoes, who gives the movie 9%, certainly wouldn't call it a good one, either.

It's true that anyone who's ever seen The Roommate trailer probably already knows exactly how the movie will go down by following the "Crazy White Girl Movie" guidelines we've come to know from Swimfan, Obsessed, and more specifically, Single White Female. We wan't to keep this review more spoiler-free than the trailer (which, yes, does give away everything...), so we're not going to flesh out the cliched similarities between "The Roommate" and those movies previously mentioned, but - they're there.

The story follows Sara Matthews (Minka Kelly) as she moves into college her freshman year. She is paired up to live with a cute girl, Rebecca (Leighton Meester), and the two quickly begin hanging out. They share their clothes, they find they have things in common - they're on the fast track to being best friends. But when Rebecca starts getting jealous, Sara finds that everyone that could possibly stand in the way of this friendship start disappearing. It's not until it's too late that Sara starts putting these pieces together...

Because the scenes were nothing new, perhaps an R-rating would have made this movie a step better than it is. We're not asking for gratutitous violence, but when you show someone's belly button ring about to be pulled out and then cut away in the trailer, why show the same exact footage in the movie? We have a ticket. We paid $13 for it. Don't cut away - we want to see that skin RIP. The same can be said for Rebecca's other victims. We've seen PG-13 movies before, and we get it - larger audiences, blah, blah, blah. But with a typical script that any gay tween with a typewriter and a love of crazy bitches could have written, at least show some bitches bleed.

We're not going to lie, though. We've made no attempt at keeping it a secret, and we'll yell it from the rooftop of the dorm buildings if we have to: the main reason we went to see this movie was Leighton Meester. And although we may have known the entire script from the moment we saw the trailer, Leighton truly does not disappoint. She WORKS the crazy like nobody's business. On more than one occasion, we were left shivering with chills because we were afraid of her and because we were so proud of her. We've seen her play bitchy Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl, we've seen her play naive and hopeful Chiles Stanton in Country Strong, and now we see her play psyochotic Rebecca. Although her movie choices aren't ones that are putting Academy Awards on her shelves, they are ones that are showing her wide range as an actress. Rural dramas, city teen soap operas, or thrillers - LeighMee can conquer any role that is given to her. We hope that casting directors will see this silver lining through the bad scripts she chooses and cast her in something that the world can appreciate.

It's obvious that The Roommate directors saw her as the same screen-owning goddess that we know her as. While some movies are ensemble pieces, splitting screen time evenly between all actors, this one was clearly The Minka & Leighton Show with special appearances by all of the CW. Yes, it was nice to see Nina Dobrev and Katerina Graham (The Vampire Diaries), Matt Lanter (90210), Aly Michalka (Hellcats) and Danneel Harris (One Tree Hill) on a big screen, but we're not sure their ten minutes of screen time (COLLECTIVELY) was something that semi-well known (for the target audience, at least) actors were needed for. Any pretty brunette girl could have been pulled from the street to deliver Nina Dobrev's two lines - did it really have to be someone "famous?"We're starting to ponder if all of these CW actors have the same agent and if their scenes were filmed during their lunch breaks on the CW lot.
Either way, though - we're not complaining. You can focus on the bad, but why? Like any roommate, they're going to have some flaws. Just brush them under the rug and enjoy the good times you spend with them. If you really hate them, you can move out after the semester's over. But stop bitching and enjoy it for what it is.